Page 45 of Love Unexpected
Tyler gave us a thumbs up, so we hurried back to the car. It had been more than an hour, and we were still less than thirty minutes away from home. Alex had been right. This was definitely not a normal road trip.
“Do you ever get tired of people wanting to talk to you everywhere you go?” I asked Isaac when we were finally back on the road.
He shrugged dismissively. “Not really. People are usually pretty chill about it. And it’s not likeeveryoneknows who I am. Even people who have seen a handful of videos and might recognize the name of the show don’t necessarily recognize me when I’m just walking down the street. Out of context, it doesn’t always click for people. It’s definitely not paparazzi-level stardom.”
That made sense. From what I’d observed, Isaac was generally able to move around Charleston with relative freedom, though I’d gotten the impression from listening in on Jade and Greta’s conversations that Alex didn’t like Isaac to travel by himself. Something about other people providing a necessary buffer. If Isaac was with friends, people were less likely to approach. If he was alone? There was nothing to keep them from invading Isaac’s space and taking up his time. Not that Isaac had seemed to care when the kids at the gas station had approached. But surely even for Isaac it would get tiring if that happened all the time.
I pulled our snacks out of the back, belatedly realizing that there was very little center console space to speak of. Unless Isaac was just going to hold his drink the whole time, I’d have to act as somewhat of a snack distributor. I at least handed Tyler’s things back to him; he had a little bit of seat room that wasn’t occupied by equipment, though he hardly looked comfortable with a portable boom mic pole digging into his leg.
“So, I guess I’ll just hang onto this stuff?” I said, holding it up for Isaac to see. “You can just tell me when you want something.”
“Should have brought a bigger car,” Tyler said from the backseat, his voice all sing-songy and high.
“Should have brought a different cameraman,” Isaac sing-songed back. He shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry there isn’t a ton of room. I’ll take my drink now. And we can share a bag of combos.”
“I love this car,” I said, handing Isaac his Cherry Coke. “It has character.”
“See?” He looked at Tyler through the rearview mirror. “Rosie gets it.”
“Rosie isn’t six feet tall and sitting in the back seat,” Tyler shot back. “Are you guys going to eat the licorice now? I’d like something to distract me from the feeling of my knees digging into my armpits.”
My phone buzzed inside my purse at my feet, and I pulled it out, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t yet silenced my notifications. “Give me just a sec,” I said, jumping to my settings before I read the message. Even just on vibrate, you could still hear it when a message arrived. I didn’t think Isaac would be sending messages to Ana while he was driving, but better to silence the notifications now just in case. Isaac was a smart guy. If my phone buzzed every time he sent a message, it wouldn’t take him long to piece things together.
After silencing everything that could possibly be silenced—sounds, vibrations, all of it—I pulled up the message that had just arrived.
Please tell me I’m not a terrible mom,Marley had texted.
I quickly keyed out a response.You are an amazing mom. Not terrible in any way. You okay?
Yeah,she replied.Just tired. Shiloh is having a moment.
What kind of moment? I texted back.Elaborate.
“Everything okay?” Isaac asked from across the car.
I looked up and briefly met his eye. “Yeah. It’s just my nephew. He’s giving his mom some trouble, I guess.”
“A nephew. So you have siblings?”
“Oh. Not exactly.” I turned my phone face down in my lap wanting to give Isaac my full attention. Hopefully Marley would understand if I didn’t respond right away. “Marley is my cousin, but she came to live with my family when she was sixteen. I was fifteen, so we basically spent the next three years as best friends. She feels more like a sister than anything. And since I’m otherwise an only child, her kid is my only shot at being an aunt.”
“Do you like it? Being an aunt?” Isaac asked.
I grinned. “Yeah. Shiloh is amazing. A handful, but an amazing one.”
“I’ll be an uncle in a few months,” Isaac said, a genuine smile splitting his face. “Dani’s pregnant.”
“What?” Tyler said. “Are you serious?”
Isaac cursed under his breath. “I...was not supposed to say anything. Sorry, Tyler. She’s still early days so they aren’t telling people yet.” He tossed a look over his shoulder. “You’ll edit that out, yeah?”
“You got it,” Tyler said from behind the camera. “I’m happy for her. That’s awesome.”
“Tyler went to high school with Dani and me,” Isaac said. “He’s known us a long time.”
So many of Isaac’s people had been with him from the beginning. It suddenly made me feel a little bit like an imposter. How could I ever expect to fit in to his already-close-knit circle?
“A lot of your people have been with you since the beginning, haven’t they?”
